Success!

My National Insurance number is on its way! The directions were correct and, not wanting to leave anything to chance, I again gave myself 2 hours to get to the JobCentre office…and arrived shortly after 11 for my noon appointment. Gleeful just to be there in time for my appointment, I plunked down into a chair and waited. The staff were all extremely nice, typical lovely British government workers, the very people I expected to encounter on Thursday. I was finally called for my interview around noon by a very funny non-British guy (I never did manage to place his accent). In filling out my basic info, he said “Miss, Mrs?” “Just Miss,” I said with a slight sigh and a laugh “I’ve given up on the Mrs quest I think.” “Right then, I did that awhile ago,” he said. Heh. So, chit chatting away about the states, careers and whatnot, my interview was over in about 30 minutes. Basically, they just want to know that you are who you say you are, that you don’t already have a NI number and that you’re either employed or actively seeking employment.

So, he hands me the form to check his writing and sign it and, having noted earlier that he checked “Miss” and not “Ms,” I corrected it with my pen…I may be bummed about being 30, but I don’t really want to be 13 again ;) Catching my pen a few seconds too late, he just looked at the altered form in dismay for a second. “Oh dear,” I thought….”I’ve wrecked it, we have to start over and he’s now going to yell at me.” But his dismay soon turned to a slightly amused smirk.

“Well now you’re divorced,” he said.

Now with an equally dismayed and amused look, I said “Oh no! And I didn’t even get to have my dream wedding first. There was going to be a string quartet and a sit-down dinner, you know. In the states, “Miss” is for children.”

“I know,” he said “But here, we use Miss for ‘never married,’ and if a woman divorces, she goes back to ‘Ms.’”

Oopsy. So two lessons here: 1) I will forever be divorced on my lifelong NI card, my punishment for being culturally ignorant. Bummer. 2) A Britishism! So now I know: I’m a Miss, not a Ms thankyouverymuch.

Incidentally, he was appalled that the other location had turned me away for being 6 minutes late and I felt both grateful and a bit smug :D

Friday night was a birthday party for one of my meetup acquaintances and though originally a little miffed to be celebrating someone else’s birthday just 3 days after mine, I ended up loving that it was all about her and not me and I never even mentioned that I’d just had a birthday…a very fun evening, many fun people and good food.

I spent most of yesterday on my wine bar quest…I am both utterly terrified and really excited to be organising this wine meetup. I have four bazillion criteria for choosing the absolute perfect places and I’m going to drive myself crazy (easy to get to, reasonably priced, central, not a chain, etc. The list never ends) but hopefully it’ll go over well. I’ve plucked 18 wine bars out of Google’s never ending list of Central London wine bars and, after gaging their happy hour space feasibility on Monday night, I’ll be setting up meetup #1, I’m really looking forward to it.

As for that purpose, I still don’t have one, I don’t think finding the perfect wine bar counts, but hey, it’s Sunday, it’s roast day and for now, I don’t need a purpose, I just need some Yorkshire pudding and a glass of Pinot Grigio.